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Everything she had done this morning, everything Alexei had done to her, played itself over in Technicolor as she lifted her black satin dress over her head. It slid like water down her body and she felt her pulse leap lightly as her silhouette metamorphosed with the aid of her expensive lingerie.
I look good, she thought, feeling more confident. She carefully ran a brush through her ringlets, slicked her lips with the glittery lipstick she had purchased at the spa. They looked fuller, and with her eyes made up she looked as beautiful as she had felt this morning, when Alexei had been moving inside her and she’d had his whole rapt attention.
That was what she missed, she realised, and she didn’t know how to get it back. She was puzzling over it when a rap on her door broke the spell.
Alexei was leaning on the wall across the hall from her door. He was dressed up. Dinner shirt, jacket and dark pants. Muscles and testosterone and moody blue eyes. Maisy’s pulse picked up, overriding the morass of feeling that was swamping her tonight. She almost forgot how different she looked, but was reminded as Alexei came away from the wall, his sullen mouth widening into a decidedly elemental smile.
He said something in Russian. It sounded beautiful—all rolling ‘r’s and hushed vowels. Then he said something else, and it sounded dirty.
‘Suddenly I don’t have an appetite,’ he finally said in English, crowding her. ‘Let’s skip the food and get down to business.’
She closed the door quietly behind her, then folded her arms in a self-protective gesture that wiped the smile off Alexei’s face.
‘I was joking, Maisy. The helicopter’s waiting. We’ve got a table booked.’
‘We’re going out?’
‘It’s usually the idea when you dine with a beautiful woman.’
Natural colour swept into her cheeks and Alexei relaxed. He watched her arms unfold, some of the tension flow out of her shoulders and her spine lift.
‘I can’t believe we’re going out in public,’ she marvelled. ‘On a proper date, like normal people.’
Alexei stared at her, wondering if she was actually going to clap her hands and jump up and down.
‘Except for the helicopter,’ she added, smiling.
‘I can do normal,’ he asserted roughly. He was starting to get the hint that what worked for Maisy were the traditional aspects of relations between men and women. He could do that. He suddenly wondered if he should have brought her flowers. Instead he obeyed a sudden instinct and bent and kissed her gently on the cheek, took her hand.
Maisy lit up like Christmas in response, and floated after him.
Afterwards she didn’t know where she’d found the nerve to climb into the glass fishbowl he called a helicopter, but she got to cling to him in the dark, which made it all worthwhile.
It was a magical night. The exclusive restaurant was in Naples, and Maisy would never forget slipping out of the limo with Alexei and walking hand in hand the rest of the way through the old city. They had a private room, but Maisy had the thrill of walking across a room full of people on his arm. She discovered she had an appetite, despite her long and eventful day, stealing bits off Alexei’s plate and feeding him the anchovies she couldn’t stand. As she licked up her dessert—a meringue and cream fantasy with tiny pink crystals that melted on her tongue—she knew for once exactly what she needed to do tonight to make everything perfect.
Alexei had brandy and coffee, watching her eat with obvious pleasure. She extended her spoon to him and he obliged, taking a sweet mouthful he didn’t want just to make her smile.
‘I don’t want this night to end,’ she confided as he draped her cape around her shoulders.
‘Would you like to go dancing?’
Maisy turned up happy eyes. ‘I would.’
Alexei took her to a supper club where he could slow dance with her. Maisy wrapped her arms around him, wanting to tell him this was the first time she’d danced like this. He was her first in so many ways. She shivered in reaction.
‘What is it, dushka?’
His voice had dropped to a low pitch that thrummed in her belly.
Speaking before she could lose her nerve, she replied, ‘I want to make love with you.’
She actually felt Alexei’s breath hitch in his chest beneath the press of her hand. It was gratifying, and thrilling. For the first time since they’d met she felt as if she had taken the reins.
‘Shall we go home?’ she suggested.
Alexei didn’t argue.
Something had altered. Maisy felt the change come over Alexei as they entered the house. All the lights were glittering in the many windows, and the place looked like a fairytale castle, but Alexei strode across the mezzanine and up the stairs as if on a mission.
